


grievance

by DogGoesMow



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Child Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-10
Updated: 2018-10-10
Packaged: 2019-07-29 00:44:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16253156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DogGoesMow/pseuds/DogGoesMow
Summary: griev·ancea feeling of resentment over something believed to be wrong or unfair.





	grievance

**Author's Note:**

> new and improved!  
> warning: a kinda maybe scary scene where a shadow demon thing climbs out of a skeleton's mouth but in more detail, also references to suicide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ik, quite literally, meets death

Illusion Knight swears she met death himself.

Days ago- or maybe even weeks ago, she doesn't keep track- she had learned of the death a dear friend of hers.

They were just a child, or more of a preteen, they were called Jeremoth. She doesn't know if they had a last name, or if they did they probably preferred not to use it.

They had tan skin and curly brown hair like her own, but not as dark. They wore a red hooded cloak that only went as long as their wrists, and carried a parasol someone would probably bring to a funeral, and had tired dark brown eyes. They laughed shamelessly, loudly, and they coughed and wheezed from laughing so hard. They snorted when they laughed.

She knew their biological family wasn't the greatest, they were actually probably the "worstest," as they might've worded it themself. From what she heard, they were... vaguely abusive towards them. She doesn't know the details. She had met them- their parents- once before, though she didn't know of their abuse quite yet at the time. But she had gotten a bad feeling about them, just the way their parents carried themselves and spoke, the way they worded things. She can't fully describe the vibe she got from interacting with them, but they made her uncomfortable. 

They had a mother, a step-father (she was told their mother divorced their birth father), and apparently at one point a dog. There was no dog when she had "visited". They told her that "she was tiny, and had eyebrows." 

She misses their youthful enthusiasm. They weren't the only child she knew- but they were an individual, and she misses them.  
When she met them, they carried a huge skeleton wearing a funeral dress and a wide-brimmed black hat that had the skull of a borzoi and an overbite and had no legs from below the knees. She later found out that the skeleton wasn't just a corpse, but was in fact a living entity. She genuinely couldn't tell whether he was of the skeleton species, or if he was reanimated (she thinks Jeremoth was a necromancer? an unsafe practice.), or if he was something else possessing those bones. 

His name was Anpu. Jeremoth said that he saved them. Somehow, he spoke without opening his jaws, and most of the time he was fully limp like an inanimate corpse. He did not seem like a living skeleton, though he looked like one, with his huge stature and animal head.

He was their caretaker. He protected them, apparently, somehow, despite Jeremoth being the one literally dragging him around. But she's not one to be unwary of the dead.

They were quite the duo. Jeremoth would say something silly and Anpu would say another silly thing in response, or vice versa, and then they'd all laugh. 

She had never, ever seen either of the two indoors. They always hung out in the same general area of some sort-of cavern that was too open to be a cavern, and she thinks they may have lived there. She doesn't know where or when they got their food, or where exactly they slept.

Jeremoth was a funny kid. They worded things strangely, but not in an intimidating way like their parents. They'd make over the top threats, that were so ridiculous that she knew they were kidding, and Anpu would have a deadpan response.

When she found Anpu alone one day, she felt immediately that something was wrong. 

He had told her that Jeremoth was gone, that they had left. She knew, somehow, despite him not saying it explicitly, that he meant that they had died. 

She was glad she wore a mask, because she was so caught off guard that she was sure she'd've embarrassed herself then. Looking back, she feels selfish for not letting herself be seen faltering at a time like this. She feels like if she were to show anyone her face, it'd be Anpu and Jeremoth.

They had talked about it briefly, and there was a period of silence. Anpu gave her their parasol, and their cloak.   
Then, something she still has a hard time believing was real happened. 

Anpu ducked his head down, and she thought for a second he was crying, but then she saw something unbelievable.

His mouth was being opened, held ajar with hands of shadow, and the shadow thing started to crawl out from his mouth. She had never seen his mouth open. 

The thing had crawled out entirely, and she was amazed that it could even fit through his jaws, and it looked at her, and it left, leaving Anpu's bones completely limp and truly lifeless.

She stood there in silence for a moment, over Anpu's now lifeless uninhabited bones, and then her emotions seemed to have caught up with her, and she started sobbing, clutching Jeremoth's belongings close.

After her little breakdown, she made some kind of makeshift grave for them. There was no body to bury, and she was no gravedigger, so she planted their parasol firmly into the dirt by Anpu's bones, and wrapped their cloak around Anpu's body and kept herself from breaking out into tears again.

Weeks, or maybe days later, she had come back to pay respects to Jeremoth and Anpu again, because there was noone else but her who even knew or cared about them, but someone was already there.

It was the same shadow thing that had escaped from Anpu's face, and it was sitting there, crosslegged in front of her little setup she had made. She didn't know what to do other than stand and stare. During her staring, she finally got the chance to get a better look at the creature. 

It seemed to be made completely out of darkness, but it seemed almost like it had fur. It had the head of a jackal, and wore golden pauldrons and a similar gorget. It seemed to have an overbite. 

At some point during her staring, it had turned its head to look at her. Its eyes were striking and empty and a bright, glowing white. She didn't feel afraid.

They stared at each other for a long while.

Then he left.

And she took her mask off and mourned.

**Author's Note:**

> (jeremoth does not die in canon, they are Fine and they are Happie)


End file.
